Recovery and Preparedness in the News
MS Coast Interfaith Disaster Task Force
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FEMA Administrator Fugate Kicks Off National Preparedness Month
As Hurricane Earl Approaches East Coast, Seventh annual National Preparedness Month encourages Americans to take steps to prepare
Release Date: September 1, 2010
Release Number: HQ-10-167
WASHINGTON – Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Administrator Craig Fugate today kicked off the seventh annual National Preparedness Month, joining local Washington, D.C. officials and students from Ferebree-Hope Elementary School at the Serve DC Commander Ready event to talk about the importance of family and community emergency preparedness, especially as Hurricane Earl approaches the East Coast of the U.S. and other storms continue to form in the Atlantic Ocean.
“Hurricane Earl is another important reminder to all of us that every member of the community needs to be prepared for hurricanes and other disasters. Engaging with children on the topic of emergency preparedness is an effective way to bring home the preparedness message,” said Fugate. “Local events like this one are happening all over the country throughout September to underscore the importance of getting people of all ages involved in preparing for emergencies.”
National Preparedness Month is led by FEMA's Ready Campaign in partnership with Citizen Corps and The Advertising Council, and is a nationwide effort encouraging individuals, families, businesses and communities to work together and take action to prepare for emergencies. National Preparedness Month is supported by a coalition of public, private and non-profit organizations that help spread the preparedness message. This year’s record number of coalition members are sharing preparedness information with their members, customers, employee, and communities. Members also spearhead activities that encourage specific steps for individual, neighborhood, and community preparedness.
In addition to the kickoff event, the Ready Campaign and Citizen Corps will sponsor activities across the country throughout September. Ready is introducing several new PSA campaigns and Citizen Corps is presenting its National Achievement Awards during September.
Mississippi Gulf Coast Oil Spill Disaster Recovery Summit
July 2010
by Ann Olsen of the Meridian Institute
CARRI was a presenting sponsor of the June 30 Mississippi Gulf Coast Oil Spill Disaster Recovery Summit, organized by South Mississippi Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (SMVOAD) and University of South Mississippi’s Center for Policy and Resilience (USM-CPR). The day-long Summit, held at USM Gulf Coast’s Gulf Park campus in Long Beach, emphasized that the Gulf Coast oil spill disaster will profoundly affect the environment, the economy, and the well-being of Mississippi Gulf Coast citizens and that long-term recovery must start now.
SMVOAD partnered with USM-CPR in this Summit to identify the range of possible impacts and begin to develop community wide strategies to respond to and recover from this unique disaster. The Summit Management Team included representatives of MS Coast Interfaith Disaster Task Force, Lutheran Episcopal Services in Mississippi, International Relief and Development – U.S. Gulf Coast Community Resource Centers, American Red Cross Mississippi Gulf Coast Chapter, United Way of South Mississippi, and USM-CPR, while a larger Planning Committee ensured input ...more
IDTF In the NEWS
Mental health experts worry about oil spill emotional effects
May 26, 2010
Posted: 3:24 PM CDT Updated: May 26, 2010 5:20 PM CDT
By Danielle Thomas
BILOXI, MS (WLOX) - Mental health experts say for some people, the crisis in the Gulf could dredge up unresolved feelings from Hurricane Katrina. The emotional fallout from the oil spill was one of the topics discussed at the Community Wellness Conference in Biloxi Wednesday.
A coalition born out of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita is now preparing to deal with the emotional toll of the BP oil crisis. Officials with REACH NOLA say coping with the latest disaster may be more difficult for some people.
"The hurricane itself and the flood waters that came in was a short term occurrence that we can pick up the pieces afterward," said Benjamin Springgate of REACH NOLA. "With the oil spill, the duration of it is something that we're still not clear on how long it is going to take."
Mental health professionals met in Biloxi to discuss what they say is rising anxiety levels along the Gulf Coast. They are especially concerned about the fishermen and tourism workers whose way of life is being threatened.
"This will affect them emotionally in a long term way," said John Hosey of the Interfaith Disaster Task Force. "You might see domestic violence increase. You might see suicide increase, drug and alcohol increase. So what we're trying to do is get ahead and be prepared as a collaborative network of people with some of these issues."
Mental health professionals say people who feel overwhelmed by stress need to have a support system.
Springgate said, "If it's a person who goes to church and continuing to be active in church. If it's a person who is involved in their neighborhood association, then continuing to be active in that. Staying in touch with your family members and your friends and not allowing yourself to be isolated."
"Communicating a message of 'Hey look a lot of people if not all of us at times go through depression. Go through some sort of traumatic experience," said Charles Allen, of REACH NOLA. "It's not uncommon. What is common and thankfully what is helpful is that there's help."
On Thursday, a speaker familiar with the Exxon Valdez oil spill back in 1989 will discuss the emotional effects that followed that disaster.
Cleanup crews' health at issue
July 13, 2010
Website launched after BP allegedly banned respirators
Jerry Mitchell jmitchell@clarionledger.com
A new website, BPmakesmesick.com, has emerged following a report alleging clean-up workers were threatened with being fired if they showed up with respirators. "We were wanting to do something," said Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. "There's a general feeling of helplessness."
According to a report on The New York Times website, new data released by BP shows a fifth of responders have been exposed to the same chemical that sickened those who helped clean up the 1989 oil spill from the Exxon Valdez.
The Public Policy Center of Mississippi is among those joining forces with the coalition.
"People near and dear to us are doing the cleanup," said Executive Director Warren Yoder. "We want everybody to be able to recover from this and get their health and go back to their jobs without any long-term health damages."
John Hosey, a coordinator for the Interfaith Disaster Task Force, said although Katrina took place nearly five years ago, "people are still feeling the lingering effects emotionally. People may live in a nice new house, but they're traumatized and get anxious any time there's a storm." With a hurricane, "you have 72 hours to evacuate and you have a mess that you can clean up," he said. "This technological disaster is scarier because there is no end in sight."
Mental health officials on the Coast have begun to find children suffering more anxiety, he said. "People going through this experience want somebody to blame, but they have no one to blame. There's BP to blame, but no one can really fix it."
Those on the Coast have proven resilient, he said. "But even Rocky Balboa gets knocked down eventually. Emotion exhaustion has set it." The oil spill for those living on the Coast is like a death, he said. "You go through that grief, anger, denial and finally face it."
The unknown is what keeps people on edge, he said. "Will the impact of this be 20 years? Or maybe two years?" He compares what's happened to having to face a monster in a dark room. "The only way to know the monster is to turn the light on," he said. "Some fears are unfounded, but people need straight-forward answers."
Additional Facts
in Miss. Monday
•
Nine miles of shoreline cleaned in Hancock County
Nine miles of shoreline cleaned in Hancock County •In Hancock County, 597 workers picked up 3,725 bags - equal to 55,875 pounds of oil-related debris.
In Hancock County, 597 workers picked up 3,725 bags - equal to 55,875 pounds of oil-related debris. •Nine confirmed oiled live birds and three oiled dead birds
Nine confirmed oiled live birds and three oiled dead birds Source: Mississippi Emergency Management Agency
Disaster Recovery Summit warns against long term effects of oil
Jun 30, 2010
By Elizabeth Vowell
WLOX
GULFPORT, MS (WLOX) – Workers are cleaning up the most obvious effects of the oil spill on beaches across the Mississippi Gulf Coast, but a summit held in Long Beach warned people against the long term effects that aren't so easy to see. Around 200 professionals flooded the Long Beach campus of USM Wednesday with questions about what to expect as recovery continues. "What are we going to need to do as far as what are people going to need for help? What is the environment going to need for help? How is our entire community going to be affected and how are we going to get that help?" asked Salvation Army representative Shawna Tatge. The Mississippi Gulf Coast Oil Spill Disaster Recovery Summit brought together faithbased and non profit organizations to help answer those questions by looking at past disaster recoveries, including the Exxon Valdez oil spill. "We're trying to hear from them and discover what the needs are so we can design some kind of strategy to begin to meet these needs," said summit organizer John Hosey. The summit included a keynote speech from Dr. Steven Picou, who is considered an expert on the Valdez spill by organizers.
Picou said there are several steps when recovering from disaster. For natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina the recovery steps are Warning, Threat, Impact, Rescue, Inventory, Restoration and Recovery. However, he points out that recovery from man made disasters is much different. "You have [four steps] Warning, Threat, Impact, Blame. No one can be rescued, and how do we calculate a damage inventory? The damages up in Alaska to the ecosystem unfolded for 20 years and are still unfolding." Organizers also raised awareness about the emotional stress of the disaster with speakers from Save the Children and Mississippi University Medical Center. "First of all this is a marathon, this is going to go on for a while. So that means you have to pace yourself. Second of all communities have to stick together. This has to be a collective long term ordeal." said Picou. Hosey said the next step is to assess the needs that were brought up and begin gathering resources. Organizers said this process will eventually involve all the coast
To enhance disaster preparedness, recovery, and resiliency on the Mississippi Coast by strengthening the ability of faith-based organizations to meet the needs of their constituents and those who are most vulnerable.
BILOXI — The Rev. Kenneth Haynes Sr. knelt in prayer in the baptismal pool inside Main St. Missionary Baptist Church as Hurricane Katrina started to rip apart the roof.
More than 120 members of his congregation who had come to the church for shelter huddled nearby in a multipurpose room on the second floor. The first story of the church already was filled with water and Haynes worried the building might collapse. Talking about that day five years later, Haynes said God told him, "Stand on your faith, not on your fear.”
The church withstood the storm and has remained a rock for this community as the east Biloxi neighborhood has struggled to recover from the storm. "We're a long ways from recovered," Haynes said. Seven Main Street members died in the storm, but everyone who made it to the church survived. "People tried to get here. You could hear people hollering for help in different directions," he said. The church's enduring role began after the storm when residents from surrounding neighborhoods started looking for help. Haynes said the church took on nine feet of water from Hurricane Katrina, but many of the lower-lying neighborhoods to the south and east were completely swamped.
It took weeks for the federal government to organize its recovery plan in east Biloxi, but Haynes said Main Street began immediately, serving three meals a day to survivors in the neighborhood. "We blocked this street off and set up barbecue pits with limbs from fallen trees and set them on fire," he
said. Residents whose homes survived the storm but lost power to their freezers brought meat to be cooked. "For three months we fed people," he said. "We ate well."
Haynes, whose Ocean Springs home survived the storm, spent most of his nights at the church. In the months and years that followed, the church became a shelter for the newly homeless, a meeting place where federal officials met with neighborhood residents, a donation center for all kinds of relief supplies and a spiritual retreat for a congregation exhausted by the disaster. "I think it played a real vital part during Katrina and after Katrina because it really was the distribution center in that area," said Woody Alexander, a member of Main Street. And Main Street was not alone in playing this role.
"We would not be as far along in the recovery as we are (without the churches)," said Alice Graham, executive director of the Mississippi Coast Interfaith Disaster Task Force. "That's just he bottom line."
Graham said there are approximately 300 churches of a variety of faiths across Mississippi's coastal counties, and they have filled critical gaps throughout the recovery. Church leaders took on added responsibility even though many faced serious financial difficulties or storm damage to their buildings, she said.
"Churches were working on faith," she said. "We have men and women who were ministering and responding who put their personal needs on the back burner. "While local churches tended to the needs of their neighborhoods, faith-based groups from around the nation came to Mississippi to help them. "They would roll up their sleeves," Haynes, 79 said. "There was one young lady from Connecticut who cleaned up our restroom. You talk about work? That child would work." Graham said the way churches bridged longstanding racial distrust was moving to many on the Gulf Coast. The education was mutual, she said, as whites from faith-based groups often came to the coast with stereotypical views about Southern blacks.
Today, Haynes said his church, once with a membership of about 400, is down about a third. "A lot of people failed to come back. I guess they were doing pretty good after they were displaced," he said. Haynes said Main Street is spiritually strong but financially troubled. He has eschewed any government grants, preferring to keep the state at arm's length from the church. "We walk by faith. It depends on every Sunday collection," he said.
Joyner reports for The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson,
Miss.
Biloxi church fights storm, feeds the people after Katrina
By Chris Joyner, USA TODAY
BILOXI — As a 13-year-old girl living in Chicago, Alice Graham made up her mind about Mississippi when she saw pictures of Emmett Till's battered corpse in the pages of Jet magazine.
Graham identified with Till, an African American abducted and murdered in the Delta for allegedly whistling at a white woman. The photos of his body carved a vision of Mississippi in the minds of many black people around the nation.
So she surprised even herself when she quit her teaching job at Hood Theological Seminary in Salisbury, N.C., last year to answer a spiritual calling to move to the Mississippi Gulf Coast. "I felt really crazy to leave all that behind and come to Mississippi," said Graham, 64, who is African American. "And I didn't have a job."
About 954,000 volunteers have come to the Mississippi Gulf Coast since Hurricane Katrina devastated the region five years ago, according to the Mississippi Commission for Volunteer Service. In the spring of 2006, Graham was one of them, although she came with some trepidation.
Graham traveled with a busload of ministerial students to spend a week volunteering on the Coast. "I tried to prepare my students for what I thought Mississippi would be like," she said.Those preconceptions were shattered when the group stopped at a restaurant just across the state line. When diners and restaurant staff learned the group had come to help with hurricane recovery, they stood and applauded.
"It was a powerful moment for me," she said. "I was struck by the resiliency of the people, the faith of the people."Graham took a sabbatical the next year and returned to the Coast to offer psychological counseling and spiritual training to local clergy members who were struggling with the toll the recovery had taken on their congregations. "Even pastors with seminary training were overwhelmed because they didn't have the skills that were needed to address the emotional needs of their congregations," she said. "They were so hungry for more support and more skills." more
Volunteers turn tide Nearly 1M unpaid workers aid Coast
Alice Graham left her teaching position at Hood Theological Seminary in North Carolina to help churches on the Coast recover from Hurricane Katrina and is now the executive director of the Mississippi Interfaith Disaster Task Force. (Pat Sullivan/Special to The Clarion-Ledger)
